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It's clear that POTUS and company were either completely unprepared for this (and covered it up) OR they had something else more sinister going on.

I am especially upset at how Gregory Hicks was treated. The man was a careerist, a Foreign Service Officer without a political axe to grind. He was a government employee with a clear sense of ethics, and the lying bastards tried to ruin him. It was his boss that was dragged through the damned streets by terrorists.

The original sin: It took the president and his team too long to acknowledge the fact that armed Islamic militants had penetrated the diplomatic compound. Coming as it did during a tense re-election race the administration’s determined reluctance to use the word “terrorists” seems informed, if not driven, by political considerations. When United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice suggested on Sunday talk shows days after the attack that it had begun with protests against an anti-Muslim video, high-ranking diplomat Gregory Hicks said, “I was stunned. My jaw dropped and I was embarrassed.”

The call. Hicks’ emotional testimony Wednesday accused the administration of political machinations and bullying. Hicks told lawmakers that he was ordered not to talk to members of Congress about the attack. When he did so anyhow, and a State Department lawyer was excluded from the meeting because he lacked the necessary security clearance, Hicks said he received an angry phone call from Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff. Mills is well-respected and known for her fierce loyalty to Clinton. If Hicks is to be believed, issuing a no-communications order is an inherently political act and, by definition, a blow for transparency.

The demotion. Hicks told lawmakers he was given a scathing review of his management style after the attacks and was later “effectively demoted.” The State Department strongly denies his account, saying it had not and would not retaliate against Hicks. We don’t know who is telling the truth, but Hicks’ testimony forced Obama’s aides to make a devil’s choice between letting the allegations stand or calling a respected and long-serving diplomat, effectively, a liar. They chose the latter.

The review. The administration’s review of Benghazi criticized the “grossly inadequate” security at the diplomatic compound and led to the dismissal of four State Department officials. Witnesses said the investigation, led by veteran retired diplomat Thomas Pickering, was inadequate. “They stopped short of interviewing people who I personally know were involved in key decisions,” testified Eric Nordstrom, an official in the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The testimony of these credible whistleblowers may raise doubts in voters' minds about how honestly the Obama administration faced its failings. Despite that, the Pickering report is a scathing indictment of State Department security efforts on Clinton's watch. If she runs for president, embassy security will be a credible and durable issue.

(snip)

[And NR's conclusion was:]
Beyond that, Benghazi may be at its core a blur of conflicting statements that don’t change the minds of many voters. Without bothering to assess what is known and what’s yet to be known, conservatives will cry cover-up and Democrats will see nothing.

(snip)

Translation: "Move along. Nothing to see here." What's yet to be known is that it's begining to be known.

There was tragic incompetence, plainly, in the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi attacks, and even possibly some political calculation. It is a record that may well come to haunt Hillary Clinton, the first Secretary of State to lose an ambassador in the field in more than three decades, if she runs for president in 2016.

But the obvious Republican effort to turn this inquiry into the Democratic (Obama) version of the Iraq intelligence scandal that has tarred the GOP since the George W. Bush years -- led by that least-credible of champions, the almost-always-wrong Darrell Issa -- is just not going to amount to much.

The testimony Wednesday by three highly credible witnesses before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee added to the serious questions that have been raised for months about Benghazi. Last December, Clinton’s own “Accountability Review Board” --- chaired by two major national-security figures, retired Amb. Thomas R. Pickering and Adm. Michael Mullen—detailed a broad failure of U.S. intelligence and policy-making over the deaths of Amb. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

(snip)

Four boxes keep us free: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.

I hate to say it, but National Journal has a valid point. No matter how many smoking guns (and mortars, rockets and other weapons) turn up, the Democrats and the bootlick media will present it as partisan spin, rather than a failure on the part of the administration, much less a viciously negligent act and a cover up. The same people who seized on minute phrasing in a SOTU speech to accuse Bush of lying about Iraq will now studiously ignore weeks of dissembling about internet videos, demotions and intimidation of whistle-blowers, failures to provide protection and refusal to deploy forces to protect American lives. The selection and jailing of a scapegoat will not offend the sensibilities of those who demanded that Scooter Libby go to jail because his recollection of what he told a journalist differed slightly from his notes, which he presented without any attempt at withholding. The stonewalling by the Obama administration will be ignored.

How serious is this scandal?

Four Americans were murdered by terrorists. The administration refused to improve security at their location, despite numerous requests and official reports of the dangers, as well as other terrorist attacks in the run up to the anniversary of 9/11.

During the attack, Quick Reaction Forces were repeatedly ordered to stand down. The State Department's team was able to get from Tripoli to Benghazi before the attack ended. The army team had more firepower, but were told not to board the plane. The attack went on for seven hours. Benghazi is 405 miles from Tripoli. A C-130 would have made the flight in just over an hour. If the team was ready to fly, they could have been on the ground at the compound within two hours from the alert. An unarmed drone was dispatched and was on site within an hour. An armed drone could have been sent, and used to take out the mortars. The administration didn't just fail to respond to the attack, they actively prevented a response.

The reports from the site reported an organized, concerted attack. There was no protest. The scapegoating of the video maker, which has endangered his life and the lives of everyone associated with the video, was a lie.

The threats and reprisals against whistle-blowers violate a slew of laws.

The left wing obama pr regime is now trying to smear and undermine hicks, saying that he was lying under oath. They will stop at nothing to keep spinning their wheels and make this out to be nothing that has to do with Obama, or Hillary.

The left wing proganda PR regime wants Hillary to run in 2016 and they are stopping at no cost to keep her nose clean in this. I figure it this way. After all this comes out and America still votes for the socialist boot looking old hag, they can have whatever they get. They will well deserve it. Heck, I won't even fight them on it. They want her, they can have her. Besides, it will be Bill who runs the country anyhow; and she will be as hated by the White House staff as she was when Bill was President. Yes, she was one of the most hated First Ladies to ever hold residence in the White House. Numerous staff members have come out and said that she is a *(*&*(* to put it lightly.

The left wing obama pr regime is now trying to smear and undermine hicks, saying that he was lying under oath. They will stop at nothing to keep spinning their wheels and make this out to be nothing that has to do with Obama, or Hillary.

This man, Hicks, is a career government employee who has more restrictions on him than any politician. Hicks can't take a $25 box of candy as a Christmas gift lest it be a bribe. (Yes, those are Federal rules.) To accuse him of perjury, when the consequences for him as a Federal employee are so great is a travesty, especially when politicians can lie with impunity.